Essay Redraft
 

Males representation in the war genre

This essay will explore the representations of males in the war genre both in the early 1900s but also in the present (21^st century), showing and expressing the different stereotypes that exist at these times and within different types of media which are: Television, Film and electronic games

Within the war genre there has always been a comparison of war to be associated with males, this has been expressed by many outlets such as electronic games, David vonderhaar (Treyarch CEO) says “males are used in games such as Call of duty to keep with historical accuracy of the first world war and this principle has just stuck ever since as foundation for making a war game sold to the Gaming community” in a further way he states that due to this “Games are unwilling to change to other genders in the fear of losing mostly call of duty of losing our core audience” this means that the core audience is mainly male. In other such outlets films have also adapted this core anthology as a way of keeping with historical accuracy and to a way some of the characteristics of males in war being in recent years (IGN) blow out of proportion to exacerbate the idea of males in the war genre showing characteristics of violence and heroism, which in modern society needs to be pushed forward more than males aren’t always shown this way in war and that females can show these characteristics as well. Males can show other things in war than just violence and heroism, this point of males doing these actions in war was first seen in the early 1900s around the period of 1900s where newspapers where reporting on what was coming out of the war zone which was in one sided approach to show the nice side and to ignore the negative side of the war (WW1). The papers at the time where reporting on things such as on how great the forces where at defeating the enemy troops and most articles that told the story of this where including a fighter from the war which where male, this reporting continued both well into WW1 but also carrying over into WW2, at which time films started to emerge going off the idea of males from papers but also claiming to be historical accuracy of males actions within the war which included heavy use of violence and high levels of heroism and bad language. The first film was released by Hollywood and was called Mrs Miniver and was based off the events that where currently taking place at the time of the film. These where spies gaining intelligence on the location potential German fortresses.

Some research was done by a researcher by the name of Matthew Sitter who did some research into the war genre and he quoted that: “The new form of masculinity associated with the soldier can therefore be a highly self-conscious performance of a gender. Which from this quote the war genre mainly can define all future stereotypes of a genre as they are perceived to do one thing as war in being a quite controversial and sensitive topic as its mainly involved with death and sadness, Violence with has spilled over from being in film and now is hugely present in electronic games and television but not just limited to the war genre but also which has spilled over into other genre but the main output of such activities is the male as it has been heavily reinforced by the one genre as being the norm for the gender and in which modern times can be challenged into saying it’s not only the males but also females but also males can show other identities such as showing emotion of sadness and not taking place in violent activities as some males can be considered quite passive individuals. More recently we have seen a shift of such of games taking on board this identity of males showing these original qualities first seen in the early 1900s in war films but with extreme exaggeration of what the original ideas would have been, such as heavy emphasis on violence and the use of bad language to the current day laws have allowed these creations of false war to exist, back in the day of the early 1900s there were certain codes that had to be followed In the creation of a media product and identity. From the code of film practice early 1900s: The level of violence onscreen during the 1930s was limited by the production code with the co-operation of major studios and not by any squeamish of native audience. The popularity of films which contained violence attested to the fact audiences were interested in seeing violence onscreen, and it was the Hollywood studios that where limiting violent content per the code of theatrical motion pictures which were seen and regarded as entertainment

To back this point up further research was done to find out identities of males from a modern point of view of where the war genre has led in relation to the perception of a male identity. A point to place to the original idea of male in war film was placed forward by the movie Fury (David Ayer, October 22^nd, 2014). This movie was created as modern interpretation of the American invasion into Germany in World War 2